"I can only answer, Sir Magnus," he said at last, "that you should see the interior of one of our new model prisons. They might surprise you. For a poor country we have some excellent prisons. In some ways, I can a.s.sure you, they compare very favourably, so far as modern convenience is concerned, with the accommodation in which my own family is housed-certainly during the season of the year when we are obliged to inhabit the Old Palace."

This reply was received with suitable amus.e.m.e.nt; and, as the tour was now at an end-at least the serious part of it-we moved back once more along the pa.s.sage. Our host, in his good-humour, had by then indisputably lost interest in the few minor points of architectural consideration that remained to be displayed by Truscott on the ascent of the farther staircase. Half-way up these stairs, we encountered Widmerpool, making his way down. He retired before the oncoming crowd, waiting at the top of the stairway for Sir Magnus, who was the last to climb the steps. The two of them remained in conference together, while the rest of us returned to the terrace overlooking the garden, where Sir Gavin and Lord Huntercombe were standing, both, by that time, showing unmistakable signs of having enjoyed enough of each other's company. Peggy Stepney had also reappeared.

"Being engaged really takes up all one's time," said Stringham, after he had described to her the incidents of the tour. "Weren't you talking of Peter? Do you ever see him these days? I never meet anyone or hear any gossip."

"His sister tells me he ought to get married."

"It comes to us all sooner or later. I expect it's hanging over you, too. Don't you Peggy? He'll have to submit."

"Of course," she said, laughing.

They seemed now very much like any other engaged couple, and I decided that there could have been no significance in the withdrawal of her hand from his. In fact, everything about the situation seemed normal. There was not even a sense of the engagement being "on" again, after its period of abeyance, presumably covered by the interlude with Mrs. Andriadis. I wondered what the Bridgnorths thought about it all. I did not exactly expect Stringham to mention the Andriadis party, indeed, it would have been surprising had he done so; but, at the same time, he was so entirely free from any suggestion of having "turned over a new leaf," or anything that could possibly be equated with that state of mind, that I felt curious to know what the stages had been of his return to a more conventional form of life. We talked of Templer for a moment or two.

"I believe you have designs on that very strange girl you came over here with," he said. "Admit it yourself."

"Eleanor Walpole-Wilson?"

"The one who produced the chain in the dungeon. How delighted the Chief was. Why not marry her?"

"I think Baby will be rather angry," said Peggy Stepney, laughing again and blushing exquisitely.

"The Chief likes his few whims," said Stringham. "I don't think they really amount to much. Still, people tease Baby sometimes. The situation between Baby and myself is always rather delicate in view of the fact that she broke up my sister's married life, such as it was. Still, one mustn't let a little thing like that prejudice one. Here she is, anyway."

If Mrs. Wentworth, as she came up, heard these last remarks, which could have been perfectly audible to her, she made no sign of having done so. She was looking, it was true, not best pleased, so that it was to be a.s.sumed that someone had already taken the trouble to inform her of the dungeon tour. At the same time she carried herself, as ever, with complete composure, and her air of dissatisfaction may have been no more than outward expression of a fashionable indifference to life. I was anxious to escape from the group and look for Jean, because I thought it probable that we should not stay for tea, and all chance of seeing her again would be lost. I had already forgotten about Widmerpool's troubles, and did not give a thought to the trying time he might be experiencing, talking business while overwhelmed with private worry, though it could at least have been said in alleviation that Sir Magnus, gratified by Pardoe's antics, was probably in a receptive mood. This occurred to me later when I considered Widmerpool's predicament with a good deal of interest; but at the time the people round about, the beauty of the castle, the sunlight striking the gra.s.s and water of the moat, made such decidedly sordid difficulties appear infinitely far away.

Even to myself I could not explain precisely why I wanted to find Jean. Various interpretations were, of course, readily available, of which the two simplest were, on the one hand, that-as I had at least imagined myself to be when I had stayed with the Templers-I was once more "in love" with her; or, on the other, that she was an unquestionably attractive girl, whom any man, without necessarily ulterior motive, might quite reasonably hope to see more of. However, neither of these definitions completely fitted the case. I had brought myself to think of earlier feelings for her as juvenile, even insipid, in the approach, while, at the same time, I was certainly not disinterested enough to be able honestly to claim the second footing. The truth was that I had become once more aware of that odd sense of uneasiness which had a.s.sailed me when we had first met, while no longer able to claim the purely romantic conceptions of that earlier impact; yet so far was this feeling remote from a simple desire to see more of her that I almost equally hoped that I might fail to find her again before we left Stourwater, while a simultaneous anxiety to search for her also tormented me.

Certainly I know that there was, at that stage, no coherent plan in my mind to make love to her; if for no other reason, because, rather naively, I thought of her as married to someone else, and therefore removed automatically from any such sphere of interest. I was even young enough to think of married women as belonging, generically, to a somewhat older group than my own. All this must be admitted to be an altogether unapprehending state of mind; but its existence helps to interpret the strange, disconcerting fascination that I now felt: if anything, more divorced from physical desire than those nights lying in bed in the hot little attic room at La Grenadiere, when I used to think of Jean, or Suzette, and other girls remembered from the past or seen in the course of the day.

Perhaps a consciousness of future connection was thrown forward like a deep shadow in the manner in which such perceptions are sometimes projected: a process that may well explain what is called "love at first sight": that knowledge that someone who has just entered the room is going to play a part in our life. a.n.a.lysis at that moment was in any case out of reach, because I realised that I had been left, at that moment, standing silently by Mrs. Wentworth, to whom I now explained, a propos de bottes a propos de bottes, that I knew Barnby. This information appeared, on the whole, to please her, and her manner became less disdainful.

"Oh, yes, how is Ralph?" she said. "I didn't manage to see him before leaving London. Is he having lots of lovely love affairs?"

A sudden move on the part of the Walpole-Wilsons, made with a view to undertaking preparations for return to Hinton, exempted me then and there from need to answer this question; rather to my relief, because it seemed by its nature to obstruct any effort to present Barnby, as I supposed he would wish, in the condition of a man who thought exclusively of Mrs. Wentworth herself. The decision to leave was probably attributable in the main to Miss Janet Walpole-Wilson, evidently becoming restless in these surroundings, admittedly unsympathetic to her. She had been standing in isolation for some time at the far end of the terrace, looking rather like a governess waiting to bring her charges home after an unusually ill-behaved children's party. Sir Gavin, too, showed signs of depression, after his talk with Lord Huntercombe. Even Prince Theodoric's friendliness, when we took leave of him did not succeed in lifting the cloud of his sense of failure in forwarding a favourite scheme.

"Getting on in life now, sir," he said, in answer to some remark made by the Prince. "Got to make way for younger men."

"Nonsense, Sir Gavin, nonsense."

Prince Theodoric insisted on coming to the door to say a final good-bye. A number of other guests, with Sir Magnus, followed to the place in the courtyard where the cars were waiting. Among this crowd of people I suddenly noticed Jean had reappeared.

"Bob is returning next month," she said, when I approached her. "Come to dinner, or something. Where do you live?"

I told her my address, feeling at the same time that dinner with the Duports was not exactly the answer to my problem. I suddenly began to wonder whether or not I liked her at all. It now seemed to me that there was something awkward and irritating about the manner in which she had suggested this invitation. At the same time she reminded me of some picture. Was it Rubens and Le Chapeau de Faille Le Chapeau de Faille: his second wife or her sister? There was that same suggestion, though only for an instant, of shyness and submission. Perhaps it was the painter's first wife that Jean resembled, though slighter in build. After all, they were aunt and niece. Jean's grey-blue eyes were slanting and perhaps not so large as theirs. Some trivial remarks pa.s.sed between us, and we said good-bye.

Turning from this interlude, I noticed a somewhat peculiar scene taking place, in which Widmerpool was playing a leading part. This was in process of enactment in front of the steps. He must have completed his business with Sir Magnus and decided to slip quietly away, because he was sitting in an ancient Morris which now resolutely refused to start. Probably on account of age, and hard use suffered in the past, the engine of this vehicle would roar for a second or two, when the car would give a series of jerks; and then, after fearful, thunderous shaking, the noise would die down and cease altogether. Widmerpool, red in the face, could be seen through the thick grime of the almost opaque windscreen, now pressing the self-starter, now accelerating, now shifting the gears. The car seemed hopelessly immobilised. Sir Magnus, the ground crunching under his tread, stepped heavily across towards the spot.

"Is anything wrong?" he asked, mildly.

The question was no doubt intended as purely rhetorical, because it must have been clear to anyone, even of far less practical grasp of such matters than Sir Magnus, that something was very wrong indeed. However, obeying that law that requires most people to minimise to a superior a misfortune which, to an inferior, they would magnify, Widmerpool thrust his head through the open window of the car, and, smiling reverentially, gave an a.s.surance that all was well.

"It's quite all right, sir, quite all right," he said. "She'll fire in a moment. I think I left her too long in the sun."

For a time, while we all watched, the starter screeched again without taking effect; the sound was decreasing and this time it stopped finally. It was clear that the battery had run out.

"We'll give you a push," said Pardoe. "Come on, boys."

Several of the men went over to help, and Widmerpool, m his two-seater, was trundled, like Juggernaut, round and round the open s.p.a.ce. At first these efforts were fruitless, but suddenly the engine began to hum, this sound occurring at a moment when, facing a wall, the car was so placed to make immediate progress forward impossible. Widmerpool therefore applied the brake, "warming up" for several seconds. I could see, when once more he advanced his head through the window, that he was greatly agitated. He shouted to Sir Magnus: "I must apologise for this, sir, I really must. It is too bad."

Sir Magnus inclined his head indulgently. He evidently retained his excellent humour. It was then, just as the Walpole-Wilson party were settled in their two cars, that the accident happened. My attention had been momentarily distracted from the scene in which Widmerpool was playing the main role by manoeuvres on the part of Sir Gavin to steer Rosie Manasch, this time successfully, into the seat beside him; with the unforeseen result that Miss Janet Walpole-Wilson, as if by irresistible instinct, immediately seated herself in the back of the same car. While these dispositions were taking place, Widmerpool, making up his mind to move, must have released the brake and pressed the accelerator too hard. Perhaps he was unaware that his gear was still in "reverse." Whatever the reason, the Morris suddenly shot backward with terrific force for so small a body, running precipitately into one of the stone urns where it stood, crowned with geraniums, at the corner of the sunken lawn. For a moment it looked as if Widmerpool and his car would follow the flower-pot and its heavy base, as they crashed down on to the gra.s.s, striking against each other with so much force that portions of decorative moulding broke from off the urn. Either the impact, or some sudden, and quite unexpected, re-establishment of control on Widmerpool's part, prevented his own wholesale descent on to the lower levels of the lawn. The engine of the Morris stopped again, giving as it did so a kind of wail like the departure of an unhappy spirit, and, much dented at the rear, the car rolled forward a yard or two, coming to rest at an angle, not far from the edge of the parapet.

Before this incident was at an end, the Walpole-Wilson chauffeur had already begun to move off, and, looking back, the last I saw of the actors was a glimpse of the absolutely impa.s.sive face of Sir Magnus, as he strode with easy steps once more across the gravel to where Widmerpool was climbing out of his car. The sun was still hot. Its rays caught the sweat glistening on Widmerpool's features, and flashed on his spectacles, from which, as from a mirror, the light was reflected. There was just time to see him s.n.a.t.c.h these gla.s.ses from his nose as he groped for a handkerchief. We pa.s.sed under the arch, reaching the portcullis, and crossing the causeway over the moat, before anyone spoke. Once more the car entered the lanes and byways of that romantic countryside.

"That was a near one," said Pardoe.

"Ought we to have stopped?" asked Lady Walpole-Wilson, anxiously.

"I wonder who it was," she continued a moment later.

"Why, didn't you see?" said Eleanor. "It was Mr. Widmerpool. He arrived at Stourwater some time after luncheon. Is he staying there, do you think?"

This information threw her mother into one of her not uncommon states of confusion, though whether the nervous attack with which Lady Walpole-Wilson was now visited could be attributed to some version, no doubt by that time hopelessly garbled, having come to her ears regarding Barbara and the sugar incident, it was not possible to say. More probably she merely looked upon Widmerpool and his mother as creators of a social problem with which she was consciously unwilling to contend. Possibly she had hoped that, in subsequent summers, the Widmerpools would find somewhere else in England to rent a cottage; or, at least, that after a single invitation to dinner the whole matter of Widmerpool's existence might be forgotten once and for all. Certainly she would not wish, over and above such strands as already existed, to be additionally linked to his mother. That was certain. Nor could there be any doubt that she would not greatly care for the idea of Widmerpool himself being in love with her niece. At the same time, nothing could be more positive than the supposition that Lady Walpole-Wilson would, if necessary, have shown the Widmerpools, mother and son, all the kindness and consideration that their presence in the locality-regarded, of course, in relation to his father's former agricultural connection with her brother-in-law-might, in the circ.u.mstances, justly demand.

"Oh, I hardly think Mr. Widmerpool would be staying at Stourwater," she said; adding almost immediately: "Though I don't in the least know why I should declare that. Anyway ... he seemed to be driving away from the castle when we last saw him."

This last sentence was the product of instinctive kindness of heart, or fear that she might have sounded sn.o.bbish: the latter state of mind being particularly abhorrent to her at that moment because the att.i.tude, if existent, might seem applied to an establishment which she could not perhaps wholly respect. She looked so despairing at the idea of Widmerpool possessing, as it were, an operational base in extension to the cottage from which he, and his mother, could already potentially molest Hinton, that I felt it my duty to explain with as little delay as possible that Widmerpool had recently taken a job at Donners-Brebner, and had merely come over that afternoon to see Sir Magnus on a matter of business. This statement seemed, for some reason, to put her mind at ease, at least for the moment.

"I was really wondering whether we should ask Mr. Widmerpool and his mother over to tea," she said, as if the question of how to deal with the Widmerpools had now crystallised in her mind. "You know Aunt Janet likes an occasional talk with Mrs. Widmerpool-even though they don't always see eye to eye."

What followed gave me the impression that Lady Walpole-Wilson's sudden relief may have been to some extent attributable to the fact that she had all at once arrived at a method by which the Widmerpools might be evaded, or a meeting with them at least postponed. If this was her plan-and, although in many ways one of the least disingenuous of women, I think she must quickly have devised a scheme on that occasion-the design worked effectively, because, at this suggestion of her mother's, Eleanor at once clenched her teeth in a manner that always indicated disapproval.

"Oh, don't let's have them over when Aunt Janet is here," she said. "You know I don't really care for Mr. Widmerpool very much-and Aunt Janet has plenty of opportunity to have her gossips with his mother when they are both in London."

Lady Walpole-Wilson made a little gesture indicating "So be it," and there the matter seemed to rest, where, I suppose, she had intended it to rest. Disturbed by mixed feelings set in motion by benevolence and conscience, she had been no doubt momentarily thrown off her guard. Comparative equilibrium was now restored. We drove on; and, by that evening, Widmerpool was forgotten by the rest of the party at Hinton Hoo. However, although nothing further was said about Widmerpool, other aspects of the visit to Stourwater were widely discussed. The day had left Sir Gavin a prey to deep depression. The meeting with Prince Theodoric had provided, naturally enough, a reminder of former grandeurs, and the congenial nature of their reunion, by agreeable memories aroused, had no doubt at the same time equally called to mind the existence of old, unhealed wounds.

"Theodoric is a man of the middle of the road," he said. "That, in itself, is sympathetic to me. In my own case, such an att.i.tude has, of course, been to a large extent a professional necessity. All the same it is in men like Karolyi and Sforza that I sense a kind of fundamental reciprocity of thought."

"He seems a simple young man," said Miss Walpole-Wilson. "I find no particular fault in him. No doubt he will have a difficult time with that brother of his."

"Really, the Prince could not have been more friendly," said Lady Walpole-Wilson, "and Sir Magnus, too. He was so kind. I can't think why he has never married. So nice to see the Huntercombes. Pretty little person, Mrs. Wentworth."

"So your friend Charles Stringham is engaged again," said Rosie Manasch, rather maliciously. "I wonder why it hasn't been in the papers. Do you think his mother is holding up the announcement for some reason? Or the Bridgnorths? They sound rather a stuffy pair, so it may be them."

"How long ought one to wait until one puts an engagement in print?" asked Pardoe.

"Are you secretly engaged, Johnny?" said Rosie. "I'm sure he is, aren't you?"

"Of course I am," said Pardoe. "To half a dozen girls, at least. It's just a question of deciding which is to be the lucky one. Don't want to make a mistake."

"I've arranged to see the hound puppies on Tuesday," said Eleanor. "What a pity you will all be gone by then."

However, she spoke as if she could survive the disbandment of our party. I pondered some of the events of the day, especially the situations to which, by some inexorable fate, Widmerpool's character seemed to commit him. This last misfortune had been, if anything, worse than the matter of Barbara and the sugar. And yet, like the phoenix, he rose habitually, so I concluded, recalling his other worries, from the ashes of his own humiliation. I could not help admiring the calm manner in which Sir Magnus had accepted damage of the most irritating kind to his property: violation which, to rich or poor, must always represent, to a greater or lesser degree, a.s.sault upon themselves and their feelings. From this incident, I began to understand at least one small aspect of Sir Magnus's prescriptive right to have become in life what Uncle Giles would have called "a person of influence." The point about Jean that had impressed me most, I thought, was that she was obviously more intelligent than I had previously supposed. In fact she was almost to be regarded as an entirely new person. If the chance arose again, it was in that capacity that she must be approached.

Sir Gavin straightened the photograph of Prince Theodoric's father, wearing hussar uniform, that stood on the piano in a plain silver frame, surmounted by a royal crown.

"His helmet now shall make a hive for bees ..." he remarked, as he sank heavily into an arm-chair.

4.

A SENSE OF MATURITY, or at least of endured experience, is conveyed, for some reason, in the smell of autumn; so it seemed to me, pa.s.sing one day, by chance, through Kensington Gardens. The eighteen months or less since that Sunday afternoon on the steps of the Albert Memorial, with the echoing of Eleanor's whistle, and Barbara's fleeting grasp of my arm, had become already measureless as an eternity. Now, like sc.r.a.ps of gilt peeled untidily from the mosaic surface of the neo-Gothic canopy, the leaves, stained dull gold, were blowing about in the wind, while, squatting motionless beside the elephant, the Arab still kept watch on summer's mirage, as, once more, the green foliage faded gradually away before his displeased gaze. Those grave features implied that for him, too, that year, for all its monotony, had also called attention, in different aspects, to the processes of life and death that are always on the move. For my own part, I felt myself peculiarly conscious of these unalterable activities. For example, Stringham, as he had himself foreshadowed, was married to Peggy Stepney in the second week of October; the same day, as it happened, that saw the last of Mr. Deacon.

"Don't miss Buster's present," Stringham just had time to remark, as the conveyor-belt of wedding guests evolved sluggishly across the carpet of the Bridgnorths' drawing room in Cavendish Square.

There was opportunity to do no more than take the hand, for a moment, of bride and bridegroom; but Buster's present could hardly have remained invisible: a grand-father clock, gutted, and fitted up with shelves to form a "c.o.c.ktail cabinet," fully equipped with gla.s.ses, two shakers, and s.p.a.ce for bottles. A good deal of money had evidently been spent on this ingenious contrivance. There was even a secret drawer. I could not make up my mind whether the joke was not, in reality, against Stringham. The donor himself, perhaps physically incapacitated by anguish of jealousy, had been unable to attend the church; and, since at least one gossip column had referred to "popular Commander Foxe's temporary retirement to a nursing home," there seemed no reason to disbelieve in the actuality of Buster's seizure.

Stringham's mother, no less beautiful, so it seemed to me, than when, as a schoolboy, I had first set eyes on her-having at last made up her mind, as her son had put it, "whether to laugh or cry"-had wept throughout the whole of the service into the corner of a small, flame-coloured handkerchief. By the time of the reception, however, she had made a complete recovery. His sister, Flavia, I saw for the first time. She had married as her second husband an American called Wisebite, and her daughter, Pamela Flitton, a child of six or seven, by the earlier marriage, was one of the bridesmaids. Well dressed, and good looking, Mrs. Wisebite's ties with Stringham were not known to me. She was a few years older than her brother, who rarely mentioned her. Miss Weedon, rather pale in the face, and more beaky than I remembered, sat in one of the back pews. I recalled the hungry looks she used to dart at Stringham on occasions when I had seen them together years before.

Neither of Peggy Stepney's parents looked specially cheerful, and rumours were current to the effect that objections had been raised to the marriage by both families. It appeared to have been Stringham himself who had insisted upon its taking place. Such opposition as may have existed had been, no doubt, finally overcome by conviction on the Bridgnorths' part that it was high time for their elder daughter to get married, since she could not subsist for ever on the strength of photographs, however charming, in the ill.u.s.trated papers; and they could well have decided, in the circ.u.mstances, that she might easily pick on a husband less presentable than Stringham. Lord Bridgnorth, a stout, red-faced man, wearing a light grey stock and rather tight morning clothes, was notable for having owned a horse that won the Derby at a hundred to seven. His wife-daughter of a Scotch duke, to one of the remote branches of whose house Sir Gavin Walpole-Wilson's mother had belonged-was a powerful figure in the hospital world, where she operated, so I had been informed, in bitter compet.i.tion with organisations supported by Mrs. Foxe: a rivalry which their new relationship was hardly likely to decrease. The Walpole-Wilsons themselves were not present, but Lady Huntercombe, arrayed more than ever like Mrs. Siddons, was sitting with her daughters on the bride's side of the church, and later disparaged the music.

Weddings are notoriously depressing affairs. It looked as if this one, especially, had been preceded by more than common display of grievance on the part of persons regarding themselves as, in one way or another, fairly closely concerned, and therefore possessing the right to raise difficulties and proffer advice. Only Lady Anne Stepney appeared to be, for once, enjoying herself unreservedly. She was her sister's chief bridesmaid, and, as a kind of public a.s.sertion of rebellion against convention of all kind, rather in Mr. Deacon's manner, she was wearing her wreath back to front; a disorder of head-dress that gravely prejudiced the general appearance of the cortege as it pa.s.sed up the aisle. Little Pamela Flitton, who was holding the bride's train, felt sick at this same moment, and rejoined her nurse at the back of the church.

I returned to my rooms that evening in rather low spirits; and, just as I was retiring to bed, Barnby rang up with the news-quite unexpected, though I had heard of his indisposition-that Mr. Deacon had died as the result of an accident. Barnby's account of how this had come about attested the curious fitness that sometimes attends the manner in which people finally leave this world; for, although Mr. Deacon's end was not exactly dramatic within the ordinary meaning of the term, its circ.u.mstances, as he himself would have wished, could not possibly be regarded as commonplace. In many ways the embodiment of bourgeois thought, he could have claimed with some justice that his long struggle against the shackles of convention, sometimes inwardly dear to him, had, in the last resort, come to his aid in releasing him from what he would have considered the shame of a bourgeois death.

Although the demise was not a violent one in the most usual sense of the word, it unquestionably partook at the same time of that spirit of carelessness and informality always so vigorously advocated by Mr. Deacon as a precept for pursuing what Sillery liked to call "The Good Life." Sillery's ideas upon that subject were, of course, rather different, on the whole, from Mr. Deacon's, in spite of the fact that both of them, even according to their own lights, were adventurers. But, although each looked upon himself as a figure almost Promethean in spirit of independence-G.o.dlike, and following ideals of his own, far from the well-worn tracks of fellow men-their chosen roads were also acknowledged by each to be set far apart.

Mr. Deacon and Sillery must, in fact, have been just about the same age. Possibly they had known each other in their troubled youth (for even Sillery had had to carve out a career for himself in his early years), and some intersection of those unrestricted paths to which each adhered no doubt explained at least a proportion of Sillery's disapproval of Mr. Deacon's habits. Any such strictures on Sillery's part were at least equally attributable to prudence: that sense of self-preservation, and desire to "keep on the safe side," of which Sillery, among the many other qualities to which he could lay claim, possessed more than a fair share.

When, in an effort to complete the picture, I had once asked Mr. Deacon whether, in the course of his life, he had ever run across Sillery, he had replied in his deep voice, accompanied by that sardonic smile: "My father, a man of modest means, did not send me to the university, I sometimes think-with due respect, my dear Nicholas, to your own Alma Mater Alma Mater-that he was right."

In that sentence he avoided a direct answer, while framing a form of words not specifically denying possibility of the existence of an ancient antagonism; his careful choice of phrase at the same time excusing him from commenting in any manner whatsoever on the person concerned. It was as if he insisted only upon Sillery's status as an essentially academical celebrity: a figure not properly to be discussed by one who had never been-as Mr. Deacon was accustomed to put it in the colloquialism of his own generation-"a varsity man." There was also more than a hint of regret implicit in the deliberately autobiographical nature of this admission, revealing an element to be taken into account in any a.s.sessment of Mr. Deacon's own outlook.

At the time of his death, few, if any, of Mr. Deacon's friends knew the jealously guarded secret of his age more exactly than within a year or two; in spite of the fatal accident having taken place on his birthday-or, to be pedantic about chronology, in the small hours of the day following his birthday party. I was myself not present at the latter stages of this celebration, begun at about nine o'clock on the evening before, having preferred, as night was already well advanced, to make for home at a moment when Mr. Deacon, with about half a dozen remaining guests, had decided to move on to a night-club. Mr. Deacon had taken this desertion-my own and that of several other friends, equally weak in spirit-in bad part, quoting: "Blow, blow, thou winter wind ..." rather as if enjoyment of his hospitality had put everyone on his honour to accept subjection to the host's will for at least a period of twelve hours on end. However, the dissolution of the party was clearly inevitable. The club that was their goal, newly opened, was expected by those conversant with such matters to survive no more than a week or two, before an impending police raid: a punctual visit being, therefore, regarded as a matter of comparative urgency for any amateur of "night life." In that shady place, soon after his arrival there, Mr. Deacon fell down the stairs.

Even in this undignified mishap there had been, as ever, that touch of martyrdom inseparable from the conduct of his life, since he had been on his way, so it was learnt afterwards, to lodge a complaint with the management regarding the club's existing sanitary arrangements: universally agreed to be deplorable enough. It was true that he might have taken a little more to drink than was usual for someone who, after the first gla.s.s or two, was relatively abstemious in his habit. His behaviour at Mrs. Andriadis's, occasioned, of course, far more by outraged principles than unaccustomed champagne, had been, so I discovered from Barnby, quite exceptional in its unbridled nature, and had proved, indeed, a source of great worry to Mr. Deacon in the weeks that followed.

As a matter of fact, I had never learnt how the question of his exit from the house in Hill Street had been finally settled. Whether Mr. Deacon had attempted to justify himself with Mrs. Andriadis, or whether she, on her part, compelled him-with, or without, the a.s.sistance of men-servants, Max Pilgrim, or the Negro-to clear up the litter of papers in the hall, the future never revealed. Mr. Deacon himself, on subsequent occasions, chose to indicate only in the most general terms that he had found Mrs. Andriadis's party unenjoyable. When her name had once cropped up in conversation, he echoed a sentiment often expressed by Uncle Giles, in remarking: "People's manners have changed a lot since the war-not always for the better." He did not disclose, even to Barnby, who acted in some respects almost as his conscience, the exact reason for his quarrel with the singer, apart from the fact that he had taken exception to specific phrases in the song, so that the nature of his difference with Pilgrim on some earlier occasion remained a matter for speculation.

However, if undeniable that at Hill Street Mr. Deacon had taken perhaps a gla.s.s or two more of champagne than was wise, the luxurious style of the surroundings had no doubt also played their part in stimulating that quixotic desire, never far below the surface in all his conduct, to champion his ideals, wherever he found himself, however unsuitable the occasion. At the night-club he was, of course, in more familiar environment, and it was agreed by everyone present that the fall had been in no way attributable to anything more than a rickety staircase and his own habitual impetuosity. The truth was that, as a man no longer young, he would have been wiser in this, and no doubt in other matters too, to have shown less frenzied haste in attempting to bring about the righting of so many of life's glaring wrongs.

At such an hour, in such a place, nothing much was thought of the fall at the time, neither by Mr. Deacon nor the rest of his party. He had complained, so it was said, only of a bruise on his thigh and a "shaking up" inside. Indeed, he had insisted on prolonging the festivities, if they could be so called, until four o'clock in the morning: an hour when Barnby, woken at last after repeated knocking, had been roused to admit him, with Gypsy, once more to the house, because the latch-key had by that time been lost or mislaid. Mr. Deacon had gone into hospital a day or two later. He must have sustained some internal injury, for he died within the week.

We had met fairly often in the course of renewed acquaintance, for I had taken to dropping in on Barnby once or twice a week, and we would sometimes descend to the shop, or Mr. Deacon's sitting-room, for a talk, or go across with him to the pub for a drink. Now he was no more. Transition between the states of life and death had been effected with such formidable rapidity that his anniversary seemed scarcely completed before he had been thus silently called away; and, as Barnby remarked some time later, it was "hard to think of Edgar without being overwhelmed with moralisings of a somewhat ba.n.a.l kind." I certainly felt sad that I should not see Mr. Deacon again. The milestones provided by him had now come suddenly to an end. The road stretched forward still.

"Edgar's sister is picking up the pieces," Barnby said. "She is a clergyman's wife, living in Norfolk, and has already had a shattering row with Jones."

He had made this remark when informing me by telephone of arrangements made for the funeral, which was to take place on a Sat.u.r.day: the day, as it happened, upon which I had agreed to have supper with Widmerpool and his mother at their flat. This invitation, arriving in the form of a note from Mrs. Widmerpool, had added that she was looking forward to meeting "so old a friend" of her son's. I was not sure that this was exactly the light in which I wished, or, indeed, had any right, to appear; although I had to admit to myself that I was curious to learn from Widmerpool's lips, as I had not seen him since Stourwater, an account, told from his own point of view, of the course events had taken in connection with himself and Gypsy Jones. I had already received one summary from Barnby on my first visit to Mr. Deacon's shop after return from the Walpole-Wilsons'. He had spoken of the subject at once, so that no question of betraying Widmerpool's confidence arose.

"Your friend paid," Barnby had said. "And that was all."

"How do you know?"

"Jones told me."

"Is she to be believed?"

"No statement on that subject can ever be unreservedly accepted," said Barnby. "But he has never turned up here since. Her story is that he left in a rage."

"I don't wonder."

Barnby shook his head and laughed. He did not like Gypsy, nor she him, and so far as he was concerned, that was an end of the matter. I saw his point, though personally I did not share the obduracy of his views. In fact there were moments when Gypsy turned up at the shop and we seemed to get on rather well together. Her egotism was of that entirely unrestrained kind, always hard to resist when accompanied by tolerable looks, a pa.s.sionate self-absorption of the crudest kind, extending almost far enough to threaten the limits of sanity: with the added attraction of unfamiliar ways and thought. Besides, there was something disarming, almost touching, about her imperfectly concealed respect for "books," which played a considerable part in her conversation when not talking of "chalking" and other political activities. However-as Barbara might have said-there was no need to become sentimental. Gypsy usually showed herself, on the whole, more agreeable than on the first night we had met, but she could still be tiresome enough if the mood so took her.

"Jones is an excellent specimen of middle-cla.s.s female education brought to its logical conclusions," Barnby used to say. "She couldn't be more perfect even if she had gone to the university. Her head is stuffed full of all the most pretentious nonsense you can think of, and she is incapable-but literally incapable-of thought. The upper and lower cla.s.ses can sometimes keep their daughters in order-the middle cla.s.ses rarely, if ever. I belong to the latter, and I know."

I felt this judgment unnecessarily severe. Claiming, as she did, some elementary knowledge of typing and shorthand, Gypsy was temporarily employed in some unspecified capacity, next-door to Mr. Deacon's, at the offices of the Vox Populi Press: duties alleged by Barnby to be contingent on "sleeping with Craggs," managing director of that concern. There seemed no reason either to accept or refute this statement, for, as Mr. Deacon used to remark, not without a touch of pride in his voice: "Indiscretion is Gypsy's creed." There could be no doubt that she lived up to this specification, although, as a matter of fact, shared political sympathies might equally well have explained close a.s.sociation with Craggs, since the Press (which was, in truth, merely a small publishing business, and did not, as its name implied, print its own publications) was primarily concerned with producing books and pamphlets of an insurgent tone.

Mr. Deacon had talked a lot about his birthday party before it had taken place, discussing at great length who should, and who should not, be invited. He had determined, for some reason, that it was to be a "respectable" gathering, though no one, not even Barnby and Gypsy Jones knew where-or rather at whom-Mr. Deacon was likely to draw the line. Naturally, these two were themselves to be present, and they were to ask, at Mr. Deacon's suggestion, some of their own friends. However, when the names of prospective candidates for invitation were actually put forward, there had been a good deal of argument on Mr. Deacon's part as to whether or not he could agree to allow some of the postulants "in the house"-using the phrase I remembered Stringham attaching to Peter Templer years before-because a great many people, often unknown to themselves, had, at one time or another, caused offence to him in a greater or lesser degree. In the end he relented, vetoing only a few of Barnby's female acquaintances: procedure which certainly caused no hard feelings on Barnby's part.

Speaking for myself, I had been prepared for anything at Mr. Deacon's party. I was conscious, as it happened, of a certain sense of disappointment, even of annoyance, in my own life, and weariness of its routine. This was because, not many days before, I had rung up the Duports' house in Hill Street, and a caretaker, or whoever had answered the telephone, had informed me that the Duports had gone abroad again, and were coming back in the spring. This statement was accompanied by various hypotheses and suggestions on the part of the speaker, embedded in a suitable density of hesitation and subterfuge, that made the fact that Jean was, as my informant put it, "expecting," no longer a secret even before this definitive word itself dropped into our conversation. This eventuality, I realised at once, was something to be inevitably a.s.sociated with the married state; certainly not to be looked upon as unreasonable, or-as Mr. Deacon would say-"indiscreet."

All the same, I felt, as I have said, disappointed, although aware that I could hardly claim that anything had taken place to justify even the faintest suspicion of a broken "romance." In fact, I could not even explain to myself why it was, for some reason, necessary to make this denial-that a relatively serious hope had been blighted-sufficiently clear in my own mind. In short, the situation encouraged the kind of mood that made the prospect of an entertainment such as Mr. Deacon's party promised to be, acceptable rather than the reverse. The same pervading spirit of being left, emotionally speaking, high and dry on a not specially Elysian coast, had also caused a faint pang, while having my hair cut, at seeing a picture of Prince Theodoric, sitting on the sands of the Lido between Lady Ardgla.s.s and a beautiful Brazilian, a reminder of the visit to Stourwater that now seemed so long past, and also of the perennial charm of female companionship in attractive surroundings. On thinking over this photograph, however, I recalled that, even apart from circ.u.mstances inherent in our different walks of life, the Prince's own preferred a.s.sociate had been Mrs. Wentworth, so that he, too, had probably suffered a lack of fulfilment. Barnby had been delighted when his attention had been drawn to this snapshot.

"I knew Baby would ditch Theodoric," he said. "I wonder who the Brazilian girl was."

He had even expressed a hope that he might succeed in bringing Mrs. Wentworth to Mr. Deacon's party.

"Somewhere where she would at least be sure of not meeting Donners," he had added.

Certainly, Sir Magnus had not turned up at Mr. Deacon's, nor, for that matter, anyone at all like him. The sitting-room had been largely cleared of the many objects over-flowed from the shop that were usually contained there. Chairs and sofa had been pushed back to the walls, which were hung on all sides, frame to frame, with his own paintings, making a kind of memorial hall of Mr. Deacon's art. Even this drastic treatment of the furniture did not entirely exempt the place from its habitually old-maidish air, which seemed, as a rule, to be vested in the extraordinary number of knick-knacks, tear-bottles and tiny ornamental cases for needles or toothpicks, that normally littered every available s.p.a.ce.

At either end of the mantelpiece stood a small oval frame-the pair of them uniformly ornamented with sea sh.e.l.ls-one of which contained a tinted daguerreotype of Mr. Deacon's mother, the other enclosing a bearded figure, the likeness, so it appeared, of Walt Whitman, for whom Mr. Deacon possessed a profound admiration. The late Mrs. Deacon's features so much resembled her son's as for the picture, at first sight, almost to cause the illusion that he had himself posed, as a jeu d'esprit jeu d'esprit, in crinoline and pork-pie hat. Juxtaposition of the two portraits was intended, I suppose, to suggest that the American poet, morally and intellectually speaking, represented the true source of Mr. Deacon's otherwise ignored paternal origins.

The atmosphere of the room had already become rather thick when I arrived upstairs that night, and a good many bottles and gla.s.ses were set about on occasional tables. After the meticulous process of selection to which they had been subjected, the first sight of the people a.s.sembled there came as something of an anti-climax; and Mr. Deacon's method of choosing was certainly not made at once apparent by a casual glance round the room. A few customers had been invited, picked from the ranks of those specially distinguished in buying expensive "antiques." These were mostly married couples, middle-aged to elderly, their position in life hard to define with any certainty. They laughed rather uneasily throughout the evening, in due course leaving early. The rest of the gathering was predominantly made up of young men, some of whom might reasonably have been considered to fall within Mr. Deacon's preferential category of "respectable," together with others whose claim to good repute was, at least outwardly, less p.r.o.nounced: in some cases, even widely open to question.

There were, however, two persons present who, as it now seems to me, first revealed themselves at Mr. Deacon's party as linked together in that mysterious manner that circ.u.mscribes certain couples, and larger groups of human beings: a subject of which I have already spoken in connection with Widmerpool and myself. These two were Mark Members and Quiggin; although at that period I was, of course, unable to appreciate that this pair had already begun the course of their long pilgrimage together, regarding them as no more connected with each other than with myself. I had not set eyes upon Quiggin since coming down from the university, although, as it happened, I had already learnt that he was to be invited as the result of a chance remark let fall by Gypsy during discussion of arrangements to be made for the party.

"Don't let Quiggin get left over in the house at the end of the evening," she had said. "I don't want him snuffling round downstairs after I have just dropped off to sleep."

"Really, the ineffable vanity of woman," Mr. Deacon had answered sharply. "Quiggin will not molest you. He thinks too much about himself, for one thing, to bother about anyone else. You can set your mind at rest on that point."

"I'd rather be safe than sorry," said Gypsy. "He showed signs of making himself quite a nuisance the other night, you may like to know. I'm just warning you, Edgar."

Thinking the person named might well be the same Quiggin I had known as an undergraduate, I inquired about his personal appearance.